Hi Friends!  I have been so busy these past few weeks.  Becky completed drivers training.....got her permit!   Allysa took  her driving road test......and passed!  These are exciting milestones, but one is even more exciting...Allysa (16) started college!  She is enrolled as a dual enrolled highschool student and is taking a composition class.  What does any of this have to do with the book pictured above?  I am going to tell you.  Allysa was an average student in grade school and really didn't like reading too much.  I started her reading some of the classics (Ann of Green Gables, Little Woman, to name a few) around 7th grade.  She was soon hooked and became an avid reader.  When she started high school we read about this little book called A THOMAS JEFFERSON EDUCATION.  To make a long story short I decided to throw out the more traditional text book approach to English and Writing and let her read the classics as outlined in this book.  Two years later she took the test at our community college for college placement and scored at the top of the charts!!  The counselor at the college asked her where she went to school when she saw her scores and she told the counselor she was homeschooled and just entering the 11th grade.  The counselor said, "Of course, no one from the schools around here ever score that well."

No, the purpose of this post is not to brag about my daughter, it is to share with you the excitement I feel in knowing that just by reading, reading, and more reading our children are leaps and bounds above their peers.  I asked Allysa why she thought she did so well on the writing section of the test (she scored  a 96 out of 100)  She told me it was from reading so much.  So, for any of you with highschoolers burned out on traditional learning I highly recommend this book.

"A second major purpose is to help home schoolers, the true entrepreneurs of education, get the most out of their great sacrifice and hard work.  Home schooling has a long and successful tradition.  Actually, it has two traditions: First, the very wealthy have always educated their children at home, some through tutors and others themselves; and second, most of the greatest thinkers, leaders, statesmen, entrepreneurs, scientists and artists of history were self-educated.  The similarities of these two traditions, and almost all other great classrooms and schools, are telling: student-driven learning, great teachers, mentors, classics, and hard work.  Together these form the traditon of leadership education, what I call Thomas Jefferson Education, a tradition which is sorely needed in modern America."

-Oliver Van DeMille